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Maryland Wing cadet appointed to Maryland Youth Advisory Council

Cadet Senior Master Sgt. Joseph Aryankalayil
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Cadet Senior Master Sgt. Joseph Aryankalayil has been appointed by Governor Martin O'Malley to the Maryland Youth Advisory Council. (Photo credit: 1st Lt. Guilford Queen, CAP)

Appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley

By 1st Lt. Guilford Queen, CAP
Public Affairs Officer, Group I

12/16/2008–Annapolis, MD–Cadet Senior Master Sgt. Joseph Aryankalayil will serve on the Maryland Youth Advisory Council, following an appointment by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, state Senate president, and the speaker of the House of Delegates.

Aryankalayil is a member of the Civil Air Patrol Maryland Wing’s Bethesda-Chevy Chase Composite Squadron in Montgomery County. He applied for this position to further his knowledge of state legal processes and to help teenagers voice their concerns to the state government.

Aryankalayil will serve a two year term on the Maryland Youth Council, which is comprised of 18 high school and college age youths and 3 members of the General Assembly.

Members appointed to the council serve staggered two-year terms and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The council must: (1) examine issues of importance to youth through at least four annual meetings and two public hearings; (2) inform the Executive and Legislative branches about issues important to youth; and (3) conduct an annual seminar for its members regarding leadership, government, and the legislature.
The council must also work with the Maryland State Department of Education regarding the granting of school credit for council service.

Members serve one or two nine-month terms. The council meets at least four times a year and is charged with recommending one legislative proposal; providing testimony before legislative bodies on youth issues; conducting a public-awareness campaign to raise awareness about the council; providing an annual report to the governor and the General Assembly; and holding at least one public meeting on issues of importance to youth, such as education, employment opportunities, increasing youth participation in government, substance abuse and underage drinking, emotional and physical well-being, the environment, poverty, homelessness, youth access to services, suicide prevention, and educational accessibility issues for students with disabilities.

Aryankalayil is a student at Poolesville High School. He was selected for the magnet program of the Montgomery County Public Schools by the county entrance test and is a tenth grader in the Global Ecology Magnet program. In athletics he is on the schools cross country team and tennis team. Last summer Aryankalayil attended a two-week training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center Laboratory under the SEAP program (The Science and Engineering Apprentice Program (SEAP).

This is not Aryankalayil’s first experience serving on an advisory council. In middle school Aryankalayil served in the curriculum advisory council of Montgomery County Public School System for one year.

Aryankalayil joined the Civil Air Patrol in May 2005. He is a graduate of the 2006 Tri-Wing Encampment.

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 56,000 members nationwide. CAP performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 90 lives in fiscal year 2008. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the nearly 22,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for more than 66 years.

There are more than 1,400 members of CAP in Maryland. Last fiscal year wing members flew 42 search and rescue missions and were credited with 31 finds. For more information, visit www.mdcap.org.

Maryland Wing Public Affairs also offers an e-mail alert system for news releases. When news breaks, a subscriber receives an automatic e-mail with a summary of the news release and a link back to the story on the MDWG web site. Signing up for e-mail news alerts is easy. Just go to: mdcap.org/?fuseaction=newsalert.form and fill in your e-mail address.